Bandslam: Slammin' good fun

Bandslam (2009) • View trailer for Bandslam
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG, for very mild sexual content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.13.09
Buy DVD: Bandslam• Buy Blu-Ray: Bandslam [Blu-ray]


Only in the movies can a shy, tongue-tied high school nerd wind up locking lips with both the gorgeous lead from the High School Musical franchise and the hotter, sexier half of the real-world pop duo Aly & AJ.

But hey: That's why we love cinema, right? It's the ultimate in wish-fulfillment.

Sa5m (Vanessa Hudgens, left) watches warily as Will (Gaelan Connell) becomes
ever-more attracted to Charlotte (Aly Michalka), who "can't be trusted." The
emotional angst notwithstanding, few high school boys could complain about
being in such close proximity to these two hotties.

Director Todd Graff's Bandslam is a lively, frequently charming underdog saga: the sort of musical fairy tale Hollywood has done superbly since the genre was born in the 1930s.

Although not quite as squeaky-clean as Disney's High School Musical series, I expect this film will play quite successfully to the same audience. The only nod toward being "edgy" is that the music involved here is more rock 'n' reggae, with an occasional glimpse of punk.

It seems to have become something of a cliché for today's geeky high school underdogs to be alt-music savants, and Will Burton (Gaelan Connell) is no exception. As a recent transplant to a New Jersey high school that is obsessed with an annual band competition — Austin, Texas, locations actually stand in for Jersey throughout this film — Will hopes to remain a quiet part of the wallpaper, content to air his starry-eyed hopes and dreams in long, rambling e-mail letters sent to (of all people) David Bowie.

Needless to say, Bowie never answers.

But anonymity isn't in the cards for Will, who winds up the object of attention on two fronts. During his first lunch period, he meets another misfit: a quiet, neglected bookworm (Vanessa Hudgens) who has dubbed herself Sa5m. ("The 5 is silent.") At the same time, some chance remarks about the early alternative music scene prompt "reformed" cheerleader Charlotte Banks (Aly Michalka) to invite Will to critique the efforts of her garage band.

I could make a snide comment about the utter ridiculousness of a gal as adorable as Hudgens being cast as a neglected wallflower, but hey: You gotta go with the flow.

Julie & Julia: Tasty repast

Julie & Julia (2009) • View trailer for Julie & Julia
4.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, and rather pointlessly, for brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.7.09
Buy DVD: Julie & Julia


Not that this comes as news, but Meryl Streep really is a marvel.

The consummate actress who impressed the world with an amazing body of heavily dramatic work back in the 1980s — The French Lieutenant's Woman, Sophie's Choice, Silkwood and Out of Africa, to name just a few — has, of late, shifted gears and proven herself equally adept at light comedy.

The stature, the cute mannerisms and particularly the signature laugh: Meryl
Streep channels Julia Child with unerring precision in this charming film,
which is an ingredient-perfect recipe for a delightful evening.

The Devil Wears Prada was the eye-opener: proof positive that Streep still owned the screen. Then last year's film adaptation of Mamma Mia! became a surprise summer hit that exceeded even the expectations of faithful ABBA fans ... and Streep deservedly got most of the credit.

Now, with Julie & Julia, Streep has taken celebrity impersonation to a level rarely achieved in the movies: a portrayal so uncannily accurate that artifice essentially replaces reality. Cate Blanchett caught Katharine Hepburn that well in The Aviator; Streep has done the same here.

Her Julia Child is simply astonishing.

It's not just the wincingly shrill voice that wanders all over the upper octaves, or the immediately recognized way that Child punctuated every remark with her hands; Streep has the body language down perfectly. Watching her re-create one of Child's many TV cooking spots, as the famed chef works up the courage to flip some fried dish in its pan — and watches, unruffled, as it flops out of the pan and onto the counter, as happened so often on her show — you'd swear it was an actual episode of TV's ground-breaking The French Chef, which ran from 1963 through '73 and paved the way for Martha Stewart, Rachael Ray and the dozens of other imitators who've appeared since.

Consider, as well, how cleverly camera angles are employed to suggest that the much shorter Streep actually is as tall as Child was.

Julie & Julia is director/scripter Nora Ephron's extraordinarily warm and clever love letter to both Child and Julie Powell, the latter a contemporary blogger-turned-author who carved out her own slice of fame by embarking on a 365-day journey through Child's published recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Ephron's delightful charmer, actually two stories woven into one, is adapted from Powell's Julie & Julia and an older book, My Life in France, written by Child and Alex Prud'homme. The resulting split narrative feels so right that one could imagine that the two source books were designed to be blended in this manner, like disparate ingredients unexpectedly helping an already luxurious dessert become even more sumptuous.

And, as was the case with Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft, in the charming 1987 big-screen adaptation of Helen Hanff's 84 Charing Cross Road, this film's two protagonists never meet each other.

At least, not in the conventional sense.

(500) Days of Summer: Charming idyll

(500) Days of Summer (2009) • View trailer for (500) Days of Summer
4.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for profanity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.6.09
Buy DVD: (500) Days of Summer• Buy Blu-Ray: (500) Days of Summer [Blu-ray] with Digital Copy


Linear narration is a conceit of published fiction.

When encouraged — or forced — to recount life-changing events that have pleased or saddened us, we never tell the story from start to finish; it's more a jumble of isolated events as they leap to mind. We interrupt ourselves constantly, jumping back and forth in time as one memory prompts another that may relate only tangentially.

Music fuels every aspect of the blossoming relationship between Tom (Joseph
Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel); when not setting up
imaginary households in an Ikea outlet, their favorite afternoons are shared in
a downtown music store, where indie releases share bins with classic rock
albums. But friction can emerge even in this setting, as when Tom learns --
with perhaps too much amusement -- that Summer's favorite Beatle is
Ringo Starr.

Some bits of the tale are vibrant and breathlessly emerge immediately; others, perhaps less consequential but still an essential part of the whole, only surface later.

Family members and good friends — those who've known us a long time — generally can sort out the results, unconsciously sequencing things in order to "build" a coherent story from the rush of almost random date. The result, when the speaker finally runs out of steam, usually has a beginning, middle and ending ... but some work may be needed to arrange it thusly.

(500) Days of Summer, an audaciously clever deconstruction of a relationship's highs and lows, is built in just such a fashion. It's a giddy, lovingly assembled and impeccably acted little charmer with considerable bite: a script that cuts very close to the bone, and will feel achingly familiar to anybody who remembers — once upon a time — the maddening frustration of a love affair that never quite played out the way it should have (that massive gap separating hope from reality).

This is a sensational big-screen feature debut for director Marc Webb, who may have been inspired by 2000's back-to-front Memento. Webb's frothy romance doesn't require nearly as much concentration, though; its not entirely random extracts of narrative are remarkably easy to follow, thanks to a sharp and savvy script by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber.

Things get off to a clever start even before the action begins, with a snarky dedication that'll raise a giggle and remind viewers that one should never, ever mess with a writer who's in a position to extract the ultimate revenge.

And you'll want to pay close attention to this film's narrator, who never lies to us, starting with a prefatory caution: "This is a boy-meets-girl story ... it is not a love story."

Funny People: Far from amusing

Funny People (2009) • View trailer for Funny People
1.5 stars (out of five). Rating: R, for nudity, sexual candor and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.31.09
Buy DVD: Funny People• Buy Blu-Ray: Funny People (2-Disc Unrated Collector's Edition) [Blu-ray]

Wow ... what a tedious, self-indulgent mess.

Filmmakers who decide to become "meaningful" must be regarded with eyebrow-raised skepticism, because it's a sure sign that somebody is taking himself much too seriously. The situation inevitably occurs because the artist in question — often a director — has made buckets of money in the recent past, and therefore has the clout to be green-lighted for what amounts to an insufferable vanity project.

When Clarke (Eric Bana, far right) returns home early from a business trip, his
wife, Laura (Leslie Mann), stumbles to find a reasonable explanation to justify
the presence of long-ago lover George (Adam Sandler, left) and tag-along Ira
(Seth Rogen) in their home. Because Clarke is such an idiot -- a failing that
afflicts every character in this film -- it's not that hard a sell.

Which, in a world where poetic irony rules, flops.

Think back to Steven Spielberg, who stumbled big time with 1941, after having been such a media darling with Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Recall James Cameron, parlaying his two Terminator films into the mooningly melodramatic The Abyss. Or Barry Levinson, following Rain Man and Bugsy with the jaw-droppingly dreadful Toys.

Judd Apatow's shtick always has skirted the ragged edge of cruelty, and Funny People is distastefully mean-spirited. This is a sordid little tale of morally compromised troglodytes who are intended, in Apatow's imagination, to be sympathetic protagonists in his interminable, clumsily written narrative.

They are not sympathetic. They do not deserve happiness or anything else that might be construed as a "reward." As a group, they begin this film with the ethics of snake-oil salesmen, and their bad behavior remains consistent until a thoroughly unpersuasive epilogue.

They do not learn; they do not respect even their so-called best friends; they lack sense — common, good or any other kind — and carry on like spoiled children.

All of them. All the time.

Normally, such misanthropic behavior would be held up for low comedy, as was the case with Apatow's The 40-Year-Old Virgin or Knocked Up, both of which blended hilariously coarse dialogue with a sweet romantic underbelly. We tolerated and laughed at the former because the latter was a satisfying payoff: Steve Carell genuinely fell in love, Katherine Heigl did right by her unborn child.

Funny People, in great contrast, overflows with so much contrived melancholy and faux poignance that it becomes the sort of purple melodrama that Tom Servo and the 'bots from Mystery Science Theater 3000 would have roasted with glee.

Worse yet, this film gives us no satisfaction: nothing to be pleased with, as the lights finally rise after 146 interminable minutes.